


A Short Love

by Rellanka



Series: Life of a Short Love (height complexes are a bitch) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Everything goes better, Happy Ending, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Steve tells Tony about Bucky and his parents after Winter Soldier, This Fic is Not What it Appears To Be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 22:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10580427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Rellanka
Summary: "Your love will be short." Bucky's always viewed his words as a forewarning that he was meant for tragedy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I'm working on my other fic guys, but trying to work on that was like trying to grind words out of stone, so I needed a little bit of a detour. Also, as the tags state, in this AU Steve decides that the truth about Tony's parents is really something Tony should know (what radical thinking, right?) and so tells him. He's even tactful enough to only later ask Tony for help in finding Bucky. So things go a lot better in the long run, and Bucky is found a lot earlier than in MCU canon.

Bucky couldn’t exactly describe the feelings swimming through him as he prepared to make his way to the personal floors in Stark tower. Sure there was the feeling of relief mixed with fear that came with being away from Hydra. There was the happiness that came from being reunited with Steve, the closest thing to a brother that Bucky had ever had. There was even an odd feeling of excited expectation roiling in his gut that Bucky couldn’t explain no matter how he tried, that had only grown as he came closer and closer to the place where he would officially meet Tony Stark. 

(The man that had opened his home and his resources up to Bucky, even after everything that Bucky had done.)

But over all of those emotions was a feeling of dread and unworthiness. How could he ask to live in the man’s home? ~~After he had killed that man’s parents?~~ Something about it seemed fundamentally wrong, even entitled to have such an expectation toward someone he had hurt so badly. 

Steve, seeming to notice his agitation, reached a hand up to squeeze his shoulder supportively as they waited for the elevator. “I’ve told you time and time again, Buck. It wasn’t your fault and Tony realizes that. He doesn’t blame you, and you need to stop blaming yourself.”

Bucky forcefully kept himself silent. He just didn’t have the energy to get into that old argument with Steve right now, especially with how out of control his emotions already were. If he kept silent, Steve would at least take the hint not to push it. …Well, that response worked part of the time, at least.

And it worked this time as Steve was more focused on getting Bucky into the elevator as it arrived than pushing the argument further.

“It’s gonna be okay now, Bucky. Things are going to get better.” He said with his ever present optimism once they were on the elevator, turning to Bucky with a hopeful smile.

Bucky snorted in disbelief. “Better, Steve? So my life is gonna be sunshine and daisies from now on, then? I haven’t even met **Them** yet.” 

Them. The ever-present Them. Who ‘Them’ was didn’t need to be clarified, not to Steve. In a world where people got hints written out on their skin directing them to their soulmate, hints that could go from vague riddles hinting as to where to find the soulmate, to what sort of life they would have, to first words, to physical descriptors (but always with hints that matched), some people were just born unlucky. Bucky, whose words “Your love will be short.” had let him know without a doubt that he was destined to lose the love of his life early had been bracing himself for tragedy since the words came in. There would be no happy ending, not for Bucky.

Even away from Hydra he was destined to lose. 

(He figured the only ‘luck’ he had was that the words were written on his right arm and not his left so that he had definite confirmation that he hadn’t met his soulmate yet. ~~That he hadn’t killed them.~~ The words would have been colored gold and more heavily designed if he had.)

But he regretted bringing it up as Steve looked at Bucky like he had just slaughtered an entire family worth of puppies right in front of him. 

“Buck-“ He began, only to be interrupted by the elevator opening in front of them.

They were there.

“C’mon Stevie, let’s get this over with.” Bucky muttered as he pushed his way out of the elevator.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to think the first time that he saw Tony Stark in person, though ‘Beautiful.’ wasn’t it. But Bucky didn’t know a better word to describe the man waiting for them in what looked like a living room, a man who somehow had had some warning that they were there from the way that he was standing facing the doorway. A darker skinned man stood beside him, obviously military from the way he stood, and just as obviously protective of Stark from the way he tried to angle his body slightly between the other man and Bucky and Steve.

“So,” Stark said, clapping his hands together and then gesturing to each person as he spoke once Bucky and Steve were fully in the room, “Introductions. You should already know who I am, and if you don’t I am deeply, deeply offended. To my right is the best Colonel the military has ever seen, lent to them by gracious me. Rhodey, you should wave or salute or something. You already know Captain Tightpants, sugarpie, so no need to reintroduce you two. And beside Tightpants is James Barnes, Cap’s BFF who Cap had the good sense to ask me for help with finding.”

Steve was frowning disapprovingly at Stark, looking like he was about to say something about his over-the-top greeting, but Bucky… Bucky thought he understood it. Already he was feeling a little less nervous, a little less shaky in his skin as Stark’s showboating drew all the attention to himself and allowed Bucky to relax from the feeling- the expectation- that all eyes were on him. Gave him a chance to really observe Stark, and to see how he wasn’t as nerveless as he appeared, little physical tells giving away the truth even as he covered them up with even grander gestures. 

“Stark,” Bucky began as Stark stopped the introductions and before he could start in on another spiel, interesting as Bucky was sure it would have been (why did he feel like he could watch Stark for days?), “I’m really thankful for you letting me stay here. Really. But considering, well, everything, me staying here is probably gonna cause you a lot of stress. So before we even begin I want to let you know that I can find somewhere else to stay if I need to; I’m not completely helpless. And it’s not fair to ask you to open up your home like this if it means _you_ don’t get to be comfortable in it anymore.”

Steve had turned his frown to Bucky, “Buck, I said-“

But Stark himself cut Steve off, looking a little less nervous and a little more wry, “Don’t know what people have been telling you, Barnes, but I’m not exactly the self-sacrificial type.” Bucky heard the man Stark had called Rhodey snort in the background, but Tony carried on like he hadn’t heard him. “I’m clearing the air up right now: It wasn’t your fault. My parent’s deaths? You had nothing to do with them. You were the unwilling tool that Hydra used to bring about their deaths. I am not going to blame you for something Hydra did, Barnes. Neither should you, but that shits harder than most people think. So here’s the deal: you try not to blame yourself, and I’ll try to get you whatever help you need to make that happen. And you only move out of the Tower if it’s making **you** feel uncomfortable.”

It wasn’t a fair deal, not for Tony- but a part of Bucky desperately wanted to accept it. It was strange, that the first person Bucky actually wanted help from was the one whose parents he had killed, no matter what Stark said. Still, Bucky was selfish enough to agree to it, even though a part of him cursed himself for that selfishness. So Bucky met Stark’s eyes and nodded wordlessly.

Tony held out a hand.

Bucky raised his hand to meet Stark’s. 

And as soon as their skin touched, his mark– the one he had just been talking about with Steve on the elevator- The one that Bucky had always known would mean tragedy would be a prevalent theme in his life- The one that had brought him sorrow since the moment it had first shown up on his skin and he had understood its meaning-

His mark glowed **gold**.

“Motherfucking, son of a cocksucking-“ Stark, Tony, himself had stumbled away and begun tearing off his suit jacket, jerking off the cuff links to yank his sleeve up his arm to display his own mark, similarly glowing gold as designs started creeping around the letters. 

Bucky had just enough time to see but not really register “Your love will be tall.” before Stark lowered his arm to start pacing and cursing, in English and several other languages, with vigor. 

He finally whirled to face a frozen Bucky, who had been shocked deaf, dumb and silent by the revelation of his soulmate, and his soulmate’s _words_. (Steve was similarly frozen beside him, seeming to only be able stare between Bucky and Tony with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.)

“Three inches,” Tony gritted out between clenched teeth. (Rhodey, who had just been recovering from the laughing fit that had overcome him a little after their marks started glowing gold and had half collapsed against a couch, started laughing hysterically again.) “You are three inches. Taller. Than me. **Three. Inches.** This is bullshit!” Tony shouted to the ceiling, looking like he felt that a grievous wrong had been done in the universe.

(“Cabinets.” Rhodey gasped somewhere in the background. “Cabinets, shelves, FYTP*, oh fuck, Tony, FYTP.”)

Tony jerked around to face Rhodey with what looked like one heck of a tangent waiting on his lips, but Bucky-

“Physical descriptors.” Bucky could vaguely feel himself saying, his brain rebooting from his universe being turned upside down as everything he thought he knew turned on its head. “Our words. They’re _physical descriptors?_ ”

Tony stopped from where he'd been headed towards Rhodey and turned to him at that, and even Rhodey had stopped his laughter when he heard how strangled Bucky had sounded, to look first at Bucky, than at Tony. 

“Yeah,” Tony said, expression softening as something like understanding filled his features instead as he glanced down at Bucky’s words, still glowing slightly on his skin, before looking back up to meet his eyes, “No other way they would match. Afraid you’re stuck with me.”

Bucky looked at the man in front of him. At the wonderful, impossible man. At the man Bucky wouldn’t have to love than lose, at the man that there was a good possibility he might be able to **keep**. At the man that Bucky would never, ever give up because after years of thinking that he would lose him… To know that there was a chance that he wouldn’t? It was a gift that Bucky was entirely incapable of **not** grasping onto with everything he was, with every tattered, broken piece of himself. Tony was **his** now, just as Bucky belonged to Tony, and Bucky would never let anything take them away from each other. No matter what he had to do, as long as Tony still wanted him, he would always fight any battle, wage any war, to make sure they were able to stay together. 

And with this resolve, Bucky looked at his soulmate and said, “No. You’re stuck with me.”

End

 

*FYTP, pronounced ‘fight’ and standing for ‘Fuck You Tall People’ is a bot that Tony created while at MIT, at the height of his stature issues. Its main body is basically a long arm capable of reaching high places to get the items stored in said places. Tony gave her to Rhodey because she kept picking Tony up so that he could reach those high places himself and that was potentially dangerous (not to mention very embarrassing) in the lab. (She never tried to do the same thing to Rhodey.) Tony still goes over to Rhodey’s place to visit her at least once a month.

**Author's Note:**

> No, Tony was not cursing about, or at, Bucky in particular. He was cursing at fate for giving him a hint that gave him life-long height issues when his soulmate was **only three inches taller than him.** After living through a lifetime of that, he’d really expected his soulmate to be seven feet tall, or something. Seriously. Tony did not appreciate the joke about his height, fate. In fact, his side of the summary went: _"Your love will be tall." Meanwhile, Tony's always had a good suspicion as to what context his words are in, and he has a few fucking choice words for fate should he ever meet it. (Fate, if it has a form, is probably a tall person. Fucking-)_ but I decided not to post it to hopefully surprise my readers a little. Who didn’t see the ‘This Fic is Not What it Appears To Be’ tag and thought it would be angst the whole way through? Did I manage to fool at least one person? *geek-ishly hopes*
> 
> Also, don’t judge Rhodey for laughing, please. He’s probably the main one that’s put up with Tony’s height issues, which is ironic since Rhodey is actually shorter (though that wasn’t true when they were younger). In fact, more than once in their past, Tony had tried to get Rhodey to team up with Tony against the Tall People™, but to Tony’s disappointment Rhodey always (mostly) refused. Didn’t stop Tony from trying it (multiple times), though.


End file.
